Russia Considers Declining Diplomatic Relations With The United States If Its Assets Are Confiscated By The West

JAKARTA - Russia is considering lowering its diplomatic relations level with the United States if Western governments continue proposals to confiscate its frozen assets, state news agency RIA quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Thursday.

The group of G7 countries is known to plan to use nearly 300 billion US dollars worth of Russian financial assets frozen by sanctions since 2022 to help support Ukraine, as the Russian invasion has entered its third year.

However, how this will be done is still very complicated, considering it will set a controversial precedent. Although, Ryabkov said Moscow would retaliate economically and politically if the assets were confiscated.

"Reducing the level of diplomatic relations is certainly one option. Many high-level representatives in our government have spoken about the issue of financial, economic and material responses to this (confiscation) move, which we warn our opponents, as before, should not be confiscated," RIA reported, citing Ryabkov., as reported by Reuters on April 26.

"We are now studying the optimal form of reaction, where the countermeasures include actions against our opponents' assets in the West as well as diplomatic response measures," he continued.

Ryabkov did not explain what the impact of the decline in diplomatic relations was. However, the Kremlin described the current state of relations with the United States as "under zero", although there has been no decline in official relations since the war on Ukraine began.